I don't think they understand BITOG. The audience here are practical, knowledge hungry, technically oriented folks who despise marketing fluff & gloss. They should have let their technical people answer the technical questions and let the marketing and legal eagles go do their thing elsewhere. I mean, really, what could they possibly reveal that their competitors don't already know. A little straight talk would have gone a long way.

I don't think they understand BITOG. The audience here are practical, knowledge hungry, technically oriented folks who despise marketing fluff & gloss. They should have let their technical people answer the technical questions and let the marketing and legal eagles go do their thing elsewhere.

Yes, but unfortunately, in any large organization, any communication that goes out to the public has to pass through legal, and as such, it will always be dumbed down. This is why these Q&A sessions are always of limited value to the majority of BITOG audience. Most of us know it from past experience, yet we keep jumping on any Q&A opportunity that presents itself, expecting better results next time. I think that's the definition of insanity...

I don't think they understand BITOG. The audience here are practical, knowledge hungry, technically oriented folks who despise marketing fluff & gloss. They should have let their technical people answer the technical questions and let the marketing and legal eagles go do their thing elsewhere.

Yes, but unfortunately, in any large organization, any communication that goes out to the public has to pass through legal, and as such, it will always be dumbed down. This is why these Q&A sessions are always of limited value to the majority of BITOG audience. Most of us know it from past experience, yet we keep jumping on any Q&A opportunity that presents itself, expecting better results next time. I think that's the definition of insanity...

In my estimation, SOPUS marketing is probably the only reason we are offered a Q&A; they are more than likely the driver behind that initiative.

In my experience, public answers to 'social media' questions like those posted on BITOG are usually carefully crafted with input from marketing, technical, and legal/regulatory departments. Legal usually gets the last word in such discussions. As such, they are 'dumbed down', or more precisely, stripped of any proprietary information. But the answers must be truthful, or else competitors will file lawsuits.

Again, I thank the SOPUS marketers for keeping us as involved as possible, and thank the Pennzoil technical and legal departments for taking time out of their busy schedules to provide us with the answers.

But where these things fall down are when either marketing doesn't have enough technical ability or when marketing can't persuade technical people to give them fuller answers. Or both which is what I suspect is going on.

And that's why I said that its one thing to think its a good thing to have a social media strategy and delegate it to the associate brand manager, and another thing to realize that it is not just BITOG types that are interested in oil and if you can find the right balance of technical info and marketing speak, you can address that market better.

Again, just look at how Mobil 1 do it on their website. They give out more technical info on their own site to people less interested in oil than we are. Not just the huge Q&A there but also just ensuring all the products are listed and all the technical data sheets are easily available.

Pennzoil go with marketing on their website, don't list all the products, don't have all the data sheets and then come to this site and give us 95% marketing speak in the q&a for their revolutionary launch.

Two different levels of marketing sophistication and execution for premium synthetic oils and the market share shows the results.

I suspect the lack of technical information is purely due to SOPUS lawyers' unwillingness to divulge proprietary information.

I agree that the Pennzoil website leaves a lot to be desired, especially when compared to the M1 website. But contrast that with this: Based on my recent experiences, M1 customer service leaves a lot to be desired compared to SOPUS. So which do you prefer, a better website or better customer support?

I want a reasonably priced, high quality product from a company who cares about my business, and who cares about BITOG. Pennzoil and Castrol have both offered and completed BITOG Q&As. How many has Mobil 1 offered? Zero?

I'm done with M1 for a while. If they can do without my business, I can do without their oil.

$15 rebate submission apparently got lost in the mail, Mobil 1 says they have no record of my submission. I say OK, well I have copies of my receipt and rebate form, where should I send those? Mobil 1 says I'm S.O.L. since that promotion has ended... They won't look at my copies. Then they have the audacity to suggest I check out their current rebate promotion and try again? I'm thinking, are you F***ing kidding me? No thanks, keep your oil.

I've had limited problems with Pennzoil rebates in the past too, but in my experience denial was either technically my fault (non-participating retailer, or forgot to copy my receipt), or was later fixed and I got my rebate... just a bit late.

But seriously, I have said for years when it comes to marketing, "mileage guarantee" beats "cleaner engine" every time. And I noticed SOPUS's repeated stubborn insistence that OCI (or ODI as they called it) is the province of auto manufacturers only. They almost seemed a bit touchy on this subject as though they've tried to convince themselves that they haven't really been outmarketed by the XOM guys for years.

And finally, I don't know about you but, it did grate on me to learn that all this new tech base stock is coming from Qatar.

Interesting read. What I found most interesting is pennzoil saying in no uncertain terms that there is no such thing as a group 3+ Nor any + when grading base stocks. So take that to all those who told me I was wrong when I wrote that there was no such thing as a + base stock.

Fwiw, the TDS documents for Ultra Platinum have reappeared on Shell's website. When they were taken down a week or two ago there was a thought maybe they were in error, especially the new Noack figures.

While there may have been changes, the new TDSs look like the ones that were pulled as far as I can tell. Noack is still roughly double what it was in the old formula and higher than the new Platinum formulation. I know there's a lot more to a motor oil than volatility, but this is still odd.